Voted Best Dog Photographer 2015. Thank you, fans

Ever have a day that just makes your jaw hit the ground and make you thankful to be around? I had one of those a little over a week ago when I saw an email in my inbox with the subject line: WINNER, 7th Annual Beast of the Bay Awards.

I thought it was a mistake at first since I did not actively poll fans, past clients, friends or family to vote this time — I kind of got swamped with work at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 and never got my act together. But when I checked out the email and read the accompanying article I learned I’d been voted best dog photographer in the bay area for 2015 by the readers of Bay Woof. I won this award a few years back as well but this time it’s very special.

Bay Woof, the local publication that started the Beast of the Bay Awards, and I kind of grew up together. Rocket, the publisher, approached me for my very, very first publication cover ever back in 2008 and has continued to do so over the years. Bay Woof stands for a lot of the same things I do: dogs, dog people, dog rescues and dog causes. It’s also a passion project run by folks who are driven to do what they do for a love of all things furry and four-legged. Their readers are the same so to be honored this way in a magazine I love and by the folks who support it really means something to me.

Stunned. Speechless. Flabbergasted. I’m utterly humbled and grateful to those of you out there who made this happen and promise to keep doing what I do.